Scholarly Communication – Special Event!

Publishing and the Dissemination of Scholarship: Is the Process Broken?

The growth of knowledge depends on timely, widespread dissemination of scholarship. For the last 300 to 400 years, the results of scholarly efforts have been shared through journals and monographs. That system may have outlived its usefulness. Worse yet, the current system of dissemination of scholarship may actually be creating barriers to research. As the numbers of journals and scholarly books have grown, it has become increasingly incumbent on academic libraries to be the primary sources for, and thus the main purchasers of these scholarly products. The web now offers alternative channels for publishing research results and analyses. More important, the web has the capability to allow more timely, more widespread, more accessible, and less expensive dissemination of scholarship. These changes will not, can not be imposed from the top; they are being brought about by the actions of individual faculty members, making themselves aware of trends in scholarly communication and incorporating those changes in their publication habits.

Please join us for a discussion about new strategies in scholarly communication that will greatly increase public access to research, and sharing and collaboration among knowledge workers.